The browser

That most unsung of literary heroes, the book publicist, has found a new champion, albeit one burdened with the unlikely moniker of Sloane Crosley. I Was Told There'd Be Cake (out in August from Portobello and already optioned by HBO) is a winsome kiss-and-tell which draws on Crosley's years in the publishing bearpit. But anyone hoping for Devil Wears Prada-style dishing about former clients Joan Didion, Dave Eggers and Toni Morrison will be disappointed, if the acknowledgements page is anything to go by: 'Actually, thank you to pretty much any book publicist ever,' Crosley gushes. 'There is a streak of the saintly in all of you.'

We're taking notes

The Ways With Words festival at Dartington Hall is launching a book swap scheme, albeit it one beset with perils. 'Labels are essential,' director Kay Dunbar admonished the Browser. 'They're to make sure no one takes a book away that is not intended for recycling. That could end in tears. Imagine someone splashing out on Jonathan Dimbleby's big hardback book on Russia, getting it specially signed by him, then leaving it on a deckchair and someone else taking it.' Imagine, indeed! The Browser admits that he's privately hoping to turn up something rather more lucrative than Dimbleby's work, inspired by reports of a Worcester bookseller £230,000 the richer after discovering a rare banknote tucked inside an old book.

Well-read White House

According to Salon.com: 'If Barack Obama is elected, he'll be one of the most literary Presidents in recent memory.' The Democratic candidate's favourite authors include Herman Melville, Toni Morrison and EL Doctorow. But the Browser can't help noting that the competition is not exactly strong. George W Bush once claimed The Very Hungry Caterpillar was his preferred read. In an attempt to improve his intellectual credentials, he later boasted of taking Camus's The Outsider on his hols. Whether he actually read it, of course, is an entirely different matter.